Beware hardness of heart, Pope says in homily

May 13, 2014

Pope Francis again made “docility to the Holy Spirit” the theme of his homily at a Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae on May 13.

The first disciples, he remarked, did not make elaborate plans for evangelizing the world, but “allowed themselves to be carried by the Holy Spirit.” He contrasted their attitude with that of the scribes and Pharisees who constantly questioned Jesus during his public life.

These intellectuals, the Pope said, “wanted to argue.” They saw religion solely as a “a thing of the mind, of laws,” and would did not let the words of Jesus touch their hearts. Instead, the Pope continued, “they spin round and round… As they spun Jesus around throughout his life, until the time that they were able to take him and kill him!”

The Pope praised the humble Christians who follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and warned against the “intellectual aristocrats who closed their doors.” The latter group, he said, we showed something worse than ordinary stubbornness. “It is much more: it is having a hard heart,” he said.

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